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Microsoft Readies for GDC 2018

It’s that time again. The annual Game Developers Conference (GDC) is quickly approaching – kicking off next Monday, March 19 through Friday, March 23 – and this year Microsoft is showing up in exciting new ways to inspire and enable game developers and gamers alike to achieve more.

GDC is the place to showcase the latest technical innovations across all of Microsoft’s gaming toolset to empower developers to create great games on any platform. It’s also a place where we get the opportunity to discuss valuable feedback from our development partners to help drive innovation forward in the gaming industry. This year’s event feels especially important to us.

Over the last several years, Microsoft has been working to introduce new technology to build games faster and make it easier to scale across platforms. This year, we’re taking things a step further by bringing together the best of Microsoft’s tools, platforms, services, and more than 35 years of gaming experience in one unified presence.

Start Your Visit at the Microsoft Azure Booth

We invite you to come to the South Hall Lower Lobby of the Moscone Center and stop by our dedicated Microsoft Azure booth to learn how you can create a gaming empire by building on the gaming cloud that has powered Xbox for years.

The Azure booth will have a wide range of activities for game developers:

Visit four stations to claim a custom, free Xbox controller, and enter to win an Xbox One X daily.

Play our mixed reality game Pinball Lizard and take home the sample source code – and get the high score of the day to win an Xbox One X.

Play Darwin Project, a 10-player battle royale game that offers audience interaction through Mixer, with a shoutcaster moderating and streaming the action live.

Attend one of the many in-depth theater sessions or watch one-on-one interviews with product experts across a variety of topics, directly in the booth.

We will also host three Azure sponsored sessions at GDC that show how Next Games, Fluffy Fairy, and others build to scale with Azure and PlayFab. Come ask about our special offer of $2,500 worth of PlayFab, App Center and Azure services that are free for a year.

The entire Azure expo experience will show you what’s possible, while giving you the tools and code on how to build it.

Continue Your Learning of Our Cloud Offerings at the PlayFab Booth

Building on our efforts in the gaming cloud with Azure, in January we welcomed PlayFab to the growing slate of cloud offerings. PlayFab is a backend platform for games, delivering powerful real-time tools and services for LiveOps. With Azure and PlayFab services you concentrate on making a great game, not creating the backend. “You make it fun, we’ll make it run” we like to say.

While here, pick up a free copy of our brand new book “The PlayFab Definitive Guide to LiveOps” which gives an introduction to LiveOps, covers a detailed compendium of LiveOps techniques, and lists the LiveOps tools and services PlayFab offers.

Stop by the Xbox Lobby Bar to Check Out the Latest from ID@Xbox

ID@Xbox continues to have a significant presence at this year’s conference. At the Moscone Center, the Xbox Lobby Bar will feature hands-on gameplay with 28 highly anticipated ID@Xbox titles on Xbox One X. For a full rundown of the ID@Xbox titles available at GDC, stay tuned to Xbox Wire.

Chris Charla, Director of ID@Xbox, and the team will be onsite to talk with developers about how successful the program has been and how it continues to be a community effort, driven by passion, creativity, and the knowledge that success here unlocks huge opportunity for game studios of all sizes.

Join Us at Our Gaming for Everyone (G4E) Community Events at GDC

Gaming for Everyone is Microsoft’s commitment to make Xbox a place where everyone has fun. Each year at GDC, we host a number of important events to support these efforts.

If you’re interested in meeting others working to make gaming more accessible, come join us at the first ever Gaming & Disability reception.

We also unveiled that we are expanding the Women in Gaming (WiG) event at GDC from a luncheon to a full-day rally packed with workshops, discussions, and a reception on Tuesday, March 20. Held at the beautiful Contemporary Jewish Museum, just across the street from the Moscone Centre, we’ll host our biggest event yet in partnership with our friends from EA and Ubisoft – we expect to welcome over 800 people from the industry to this year’s WiG Rally.

We’ll also have our annual Blacks in Gaming, Latinx in Gaming, and LGBTQIA+ in Gaming events.

More details on time and location can be found here. All of these events are free to attend, and registration is open to everyone, so we hope you’ll join us.

Complete Your Learning by Attending Our Sponsored Sessions

Microsoft will be hosting 12 sponsored sessions throughout the week. Developers can learn more about:

Creating games through the ID@Xbox and Creators Programs;

using artificial intelligence to support game developers;

new APIs for developers that will give gamers higher fidelity visuals than ever before;

how to leverage Mixer’s game streaming platform to attract and engage players into your experience;

and more.

For a full list of sponsored sessions available to attend at GDC, check out the GDC Session Scheduler here.

If you are a developer and want to meet with someone from the ID@Xbox or Mixer teams, they will be on hand at their booths to schedule a meeting during the show.

GDC 2018 is gearing up to be an exciting time, and we can’t wait to share more with you at the show. Stay tuned to Xbox Wire for more details on the latest gaming news. See you at GDC.